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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25117264">The Woodworm Conundrum</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyGenius/pseuds/BabyGenius'>BabyGenius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Agravaine is a Jerk, Arthur is only Slightly Oblivious, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Gen, Humor, It’s the Woodworms sire, I’m Sorry there’s no Percival in this, Just meant to be funny, Kinda Crack, Magic Cover-Up, Practical Jokes, Pranks, Woodworms, but not really</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:33:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25117264</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyGenius/pseuds/BabyGenius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur shifted in his seat, freezing when the chair gave a loud and ominous creak. “Wha—” he started, then gave an undignified yelp when his chair broke underneath him.</p><p>Arthur growled and pointed a finger at Merlin, “You will tell no one of this, understand?”</p><p>——</p><p>The castle has an infestation of woodworms. At least, that’s what Arthur has been led to believe.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gwaine &amp; Merlin (Merlin), Merlin &amp; Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Woodworm Conundrum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is based off a tumblr prompt that I saw, but I can’t find it. I definitely take prompts, but I only write gen for the most part. For those of you that are following my Batman White Collar series, A Bat in A White Collar, the next one is in the works and will be posted by Friday.<br/>For those of you that just thought this sounded interesting, thanks! I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arthur was concerned about the woodworms.</p><p>Sometimes, when he would wake up—either at night or early in the morning—he would see Merlin with his ear up against something, be it his bed, his cupboard, his wardrobe. Now, at first he hadn’t believed his manservant. He had thought Merlin was just Up To Something and had come up with the quickest “believable” excuse when he was about to be caught (unfortunately, Merlin always thought Arthur believe him, as if he could be <em>that</em> stupid).</p><p>However, when he had gone to Gaius to ask him about it, Gaius had regarded him with the most solemn look and said, “Of course, sire. There is a true infestation; Merlin is only looking out for you.”</p><p>Even after that, Arthur still hadn’t been quite sure whether or not to believe them (after all, Gaius had practically raised him, which is how he knew that Gaius did have a sense of humor—however rarely it was shown). Then, though, his chairs had started to creak, and he’d begun to hear tiny <em>things</em> inside the wood. Whenever he checked, though, he could not find any, so he resigned himself to the fact that Merlin—although admitting this grated—was best suited to look for the woodworms, for whatever reason.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>Arthur was slowly brought to wakefulness by a rustling sound by his bed. He opened his eyes and rolled over, only to see Merlin crouching on the floor with his ear up against the wooden cabinet by Arthur’s bed. Arthur groaned as Merlin gave him a sheepishly bright smile and cleared his throat. “It’s the woodworms, sire.”</p><p>Arthur gave him a look, his eyebrows raised and half his face smooshed against the pillow. “The what?”</p><p>Merlin gave him a look in response. “The woodworms. They crawl into the pores in the wood and infest it, eating it and weakening it.”</p><p>Arthur sighed with frustration but froze when his bed creaked. He pursed his lips and got out of bed, deciding that he was going to wake up now rather than risk his bed breaking and waking him up.</p><p>He had missed the gold flash in Merlin’s irises, which was the cause of the creaking bed.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>Another morning, he was woken up by someone clambering over his body and bed. He looked up to see Merlin, a chalice in hand. He pushed himself up. “Merlin? What’re you <em>doing</em>?”</p><p>Merlin held up a hand and shushed him, pressing the chalice against the headboard and his ear against the bottom of the chalice. He knocked lightly on the wood, waited a second, and then shook his head, moving the chalice further down the headboard and doing it again. “I’m listening for woodworm,” he explained.</p><p>Arthur stared at him, slightly sitting up. “I’m getting slightly concerned about you.”</p><p>Merlin glared at him and removed the chalice from the headboard, setting it back on his bedside table. He threw his hands up and walked away. Under his breath, Arthur could hear him mumbling about ungrateful prats and the danger of woodworm, but he ignored it and rolled back over to get a little more sleep.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>He was finally completely convinced of their existence when he was going over papers. He was slogging his way through the requests of a duke that controlled the edge of his lands; Merlin was tidying up the room. Arthur shifted in his seat—he’d been sitting too long and his butt was starting to go numb—and froze when the chair gave a loud and ominous creak. He looked up and met Merlin’s eyes, confusion in his own. “Wha—” he started, then gave an undignified yelp when his chair broke underneath him.</p><p>He sat on the floor for a second, dumbfounded and staring at his chair in betrayal. When he looked back up at Merlin, he caught the idiot smirking right before he covered it up with a hand. Arthur growled and pointed a finger, “You will tell <em>no one</em> of this, do you understand?”</p><p>Merlin nodded, his eyes twinkling. “Of course, Arthur. It must’ve been the woodworms.”</p><p>Arthur stared at his chair in horror and disappointment before shaking his head and dragging up the second chair in his room. He picked up the paperwork that had been scattered on the floor and continued reading, opting to completely ignore what had just happened.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>It had not been the woodworms.</p><p>Merlin wanted Arthur to think that, yes, but it had not been woodworms. Woodworms didn’t exist. When he told Gwaine they had both shared a mischievous look and grinned.</p><p>“Are we going to keep pranking Arthur?” Gwaine asked, an arm slung around Merlin’s shoulders.</p><p>Merlin nodded with a grin. “We most certainly are.”</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>For a while (a month and a half), the woodworms hadn’t come up again, so Arthur had all but forgotten about them. Then, however, it was during a Round Table meeting where he was reminded of their existence. One by one, all of the chairs around the table had started creaking and groaning, starting by only doing it occasionally before beginning to constantly make noise. The knights had all exchanged confused glances, though Arthur missed the fact that Gwaine didn’t seem at all confused.</p><p>Shouts of alarm and slightly undignified yelps of various octaves echoed in the chambers when everyone’s chairs started breaking, sending them all sprawling on the floor in heaps. They all rubbed their heads or their behinds and looked at their chairs.</p><p>“Aww, no, chair. Why?” Gwaine sounded so betrayed it was hard not to laugh, especially for Merlin since he knew that Gwaine had known it was going to happen.</p><p>Arthur looked at Merlin and asked indignantly, “I thought you were checking for the woodworms!”</p><p>The knights looked at him as though he had gone mad, but Merlin only threw up his arms in frustration. “I check your room, not the entire castle! Do you know how much work I have to do in a day? I don’t have time to check the entire castle for woodworms!” Merlin huffed, and only Gwaine could see the corners of his lips twitching up.</p><p>Leon cleared his throat, still sitting on the ground where he had fallen. “<em>Woodworms</em>, sire?”</p><p>Arthur shrugged. “Apparently they get inside the wood and eat it, weakening it.”</p><p>“I’ve never heard of them before,” Elyan mumbled to himself.</p><p>Gwaine nodded somberly. “Exactly. That’s why they’re so dangerous, y’see. They get inside the wood and eat it without anybody knowing, and before you know it, everything is breaking.”</p><p>Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before dismissing everyone from the meeting.</p><p> </p><p>——</p><p> </p><p>There were only a few more woodworm attacks before they all seemed to cease abruptly. Arthur never did get a good look at them, though, which slightly boggled his mind. He decided that, since they never seemed to attack again, they could be put out of everyone’s minds.</p><p>….</p><p>Though, it <em>was</em> odd, because out of everyone in the castle, the woodworms seemed to like Agravaine’s wood the best. His chairs had collapsed out from under him a total of twenty-seven times, and his bed a total of three.</p><p>…The woodworms had abruptly stopped around the time Agravaine had died.</p><p>Odd.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>How’d you like it? I thrive off of comments. All you need to do is say a single word, just takes a few seconds. “Good” “Bad” “Amazing” “Hilarious”, all of those would do fine! You don’t need to compose works of prose in response to my own lol. Let me know what you thought!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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